Over a decade since he first took over the role from Terrence Howard, Don Cheadle’s War Machine is finally about to get his own starring vehicle. Marvel Studios is working on Armor Wars, a Disney Plus TV series featuring Colonel James “Rhodey” Rhodes in an adaptation of the classic comic book arc of the same name. After playing sidekick to Iron Man for so long, we’re finally about to find out what makes Rhodey tick.
At least, that’s what Cheadle has teased in a new interview with ACE Universe. The Avengers: Endgame actor promised that the “most exciting part” of Rhodey’s journey is to come in the series. He revealed that we’ll get to find out what Rhodey’s like when “untethered” from best pal Tony Stark and the Avengers, and we may even find out a little about his past, as well as teasing where he goes in the MCU from here.
“Well, I think that the most exciting part is yet to come,” Cheadle said. “I think we don’t really have a super-strong idea of who he is really outside of that, sort of, bubble of the Avengers. Out of necessarily his friendship with Tony. And now he’s going to kind of be untethered from all of that. So it’s an opportunity to really discover who he is in a way that we have not had before; with concentrated time and focus on Rhodey and Rhodey’s journey, and with, hopefully, some stuff about his past. And teeing up some things about his potential future. Who knows how long this Marvel thing goes. It seems kinda unending. We might all die on set one day.”
Cheadle went on to stress, though, that Armor Wars is currently in the developmental stages and the story is still coming together, with head writer Yassir Lester having just been hired to steer the show in August.
“What’s most exciting is yet to come, and I think those kinds of things were hinted at in Endgame , you know, where this character might go, and things that may be in the offing for him,” the actor continued. “It’s very early in the process of Armor Wars. We just hired my boy Yassir [Lester], which I’m very excited about, [he] wrote on Black Monday. [I’ve] become really good friends with him and close with him. Great guy. A lot of great ideas. But honestly, we’re just really trying to crack the spine of what its going to be and chop it up. I couldn’t really give you the answers if you asked them because we’re super in the clay mode right now.”
What we can say about Armor Wars is that it will see Rhodey working to protect Tony’s legacy after some dangerous Stark Industries tech falls into the wrong hands. And we have a pretty good idea of whose hands those might be. It’s believed that Sam Rockwell will be returning as Iron Man’s old enemy Justin hammer in the show. Likewise, Walton Goggins is thought to reprise black market dealer Sonny Burch from Ant-Man 2.
The other Iron Man-related show in the works is Ironheart, featuring Dominique Thorne – who’s currently filming Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – as Riri Williams. But who knows whether there will be a crossover between the two projects. By the sounds of things, Armor Wars might not arrive in 2022, but it should be here by 2023.